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Media & Entertainment

SpongeBob emerges from market chaos mostly intact

29 Mar 2021

ViacomCBS pocketed $3 bln by raising equity after a meteoric share-price rise, only to find itself at the center of a selloff triggered by hedge fund Archegos. The broadcaster’s shares are still up over 20% this year, but its next capital raising may not be so easy.

Capital Calls: Twitter time-wasting, News Corp

25 Mar 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: Congressional hearings on Big Tech get ever less productive; meanwhile, the parent of the Wall Street Journal snaps up Investor’s Business Daily.

Murdoch has good reason to ruin publishing deal

24 Mar 2021

News Corp doesn’t like competitor Bertelsmann’s $2 bln deal for Simon & Schuster and has griped publicly about competition. Now UK watchdogs are probing. Book publishing makes up a fifth of its business. With the field shrinking, Murdoch needs to ensure he’s in pole position.

Kuaishou’s timely pivot to advertising pays off

24 Mar 2021

The $161 bln Chinese short-video app made more money from advertising than live-streaming for the first time last quarter, and e-commerce revenue popped, mimicking bigger rival Bytedance. Expense growth slowed. That helps cushion a worrying fall in streaming revenue per user.

Blackstone’s Aussie gamble may tempt more players

22 Mar 2021

The buyout shop’s $6.2 bln offer for Crown is highly conditional, sensibly so given the casino operator’s regulatory nightmare. But the low-ball bid could encourage others like Sands to try their luck. A knockout price would give Blackstone a good exit on its existing 10% stake.

AT&T’s streaming is in a valuation dead zone

18 Mar 2021

Competitors including Disney, ViacomCBS, and Discovery have collectively added $250 bln to their market capitalizations in a year, thanks to streaming services. Despite HBO’s success, though, AT&T’s shareholders are worse off. Investors aren’t buying the mobile-content bundle.

Capital Calls: Netflix, ECB, Glass Lewis, Zalando

16 Mar 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: The streaming service’s password-sharing crackdown twists the knife; the central bank worries about identifying bad loans; the proxy adviser’s sale underscores its place on Wall Street; the online fashion giant’s bold targets.

Caymans may provide shelter in buyout storm

15 Mar 2021

Lowball takeover bids from bosses at China Biologic and Sina are tempting investor lawsuits in the Caribbean islands. Such M&A valuation challenges understandably have petered out in Delaware. Minority shareholders in Chinese companies, however, could use some extra protections.

Coupang lives up to Masayoshi Son’s vision

11 Mar 2021

The South Korean e-commerce phenomenon is worth $109 bln after its shares popped 81% on their New York debut. Coupang has qualities synonymous with SoftBank tech bets: fast growth, lofty valuation, and a hyped-up founder. At least its path to profit has been modelled by Amazon.

Cash flow sets runaway Roblox debut apart

10 Mar 2021

The games platform’s NYSE direct listing kicked off at a $42 bln valuation, up 43% from a funding round in January. With support on Reddit forums like those that boosted GameStop shares, the spike may be overdone. Still, at least Roblox has the rare quality of throwing off cash.

Capital Calls: McKinsey, Celebrity SPACs

10 Mar 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: McKinsey’s new boss isn’t new enough; the SEC tells investors to be careful of celebrities bearing SPACs.

Capital Calls: TV’s royal boost, Shared offices

9 Mar 2021

Concise views on global finance in the Covid-19 era: Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan is a boon for ViacomCBS’s streaming ambitions; IWG’s revamp depends on a workplace revolution.

U.S. SPACs are a first step for Asian tech giants

8 Mar 2021

Walmart’s Indian e-tailer Flipkart is mulling a New York debut via a blank-cheque firm valuing it at $35 bln. Other wannabe issuers in emerging Asia are eyeing dual listings to stay close to home. If China’s any guide, complex structures will materialise sooner rather than later.

Square’s mission drifts with Jay-Z’s Tidal deal

4 Mar 2021

Jack Dorsey’s $100-bln plus payments firm is buying the streaming music service owned by the superstar rapper for $297 mln. Square can easily swing it, but the rationale is head-scratching. Companies that creep into other adjacencies find even small deals bring big headaches.

Sands’ Sin City sale might fund pivot to Australia

4 Mar 2021

The $50 bln casino company has filled its war chest after negotiating a rich price for Las Vegas assets. Crown Resorts would be an affordable addition to their Asia-Pacific empire, and the group founded by the late Sheldon Adelson would be welcomed by watchdogs Down Under.

Swelling Sea mostly flows in sound new direction

2 Mar 2021

Worth quintuple what it was a year ago, the $127 bln tech outfit is buying an Indonesian lender and won a digital bank licence in Singapore. Expanding in finance brings new risks but sensibly deploys capital to diversify. Venturing into Mexico, though, is a nouveau-riche misstep.

AT&T clumsily cuts the cord on DirecTV

26 Feb 2021

The U.S. telecom titan is spinning off its pay-TV business in a $16 bln deal, six years after buying it for $67 bln. TPG will share control while kicking in just $1.8 bln for a 30% stake that includes a 10% cash coupon. It’s a pricey way to ease out of a disastrous acquisition.

ViacomCBS’s streaming dream comes with a catch

25 Feb 2021

The U.S. broadcaster’s market value is up by $16 bln since it put a launch date on its streaming service, suggesting the hype enjoyed by Disney and Netflix is contagious. That’s justified if ViacomCBS can hit its subscriber targets, but boss Bob Bakish faces other pressures too.

Big Tech’s foes try out “man bites dog” strategy

19 Feb 2021

Some U.S. lawmakers want to let small news outlets collude when dealing with Facebook and Google. The idea of empowering the weak as well as taming the strong has merit. But it won’t help little firms enough to save them, or do much to shift the balance of power.